


Nunsense

by FlyingLizards



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Family, Fratt if you squint really hard and with a lot of faith but it is mostly platonic, Friendship, Gen, I think is hilarious but this isnt a funny fic so idk why man, bad tittle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23078044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingLizards/pseuds/FlyingLizards
Summary: Frank Castle meets a nun at St. Agnes after bringing a wayward teenager back to it. Sister Maggie is not happy about this.
Relationships: Frank Castle & Matt Murdock, Frank Castle & Sister Maggie, Matt Murdock & Sister Maggie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	Nunsense

**Author's Note:**

> Sleep deprived disaster human here. I am so sorry for the spelling mistakes and lack of continuity and stuff. I just really wanted to write this.  
> And I know, "Nunsense" but like, have you met me? I'm bad at titles.

.

The stitches on his legs pull uncomfortably through every movement and he regrets his fucking need to go out and cause mayhem when he is stressed, now that he is facing the consequences. There are worse coping mechanisms he assumes; he didn’t used to have a penchant for self-destruction before, just destruction in general.

Frank’s overly conscious of his pounding heart, beating rhythmically from his chest to his head and sending his headache up several notches. He rubs his fingers together and feels the grime that came from sweat and dirt. It’s been a not too shitty night, by his standards; he can’t wait to pass once he gets to his nearest safe house, the one that has a cockroach infestation but great water pressure. So that’s a plus. 

The smell of the docks is sharp and he can feel the smog curling inside his lungs after every breath. He wonders if this how Matt constantly feels. Completely aware of his surroundings and internalizing every single detail, perceiving them viscerally, that poor fucker.

He is now nearing an apartment complex. Most buildings are rundown and abandoned, glassless windows and dark rooms. So a sudden shriek breaking the silence sends him into alert. He follows it quickly and soon begins to limp for his sudden sprint.

At a door sill there’s a girl screaming profanities indignantly to a guy who’s holing her by the wrist. A couple's dispute?. Frank comes closer and reads into the situation. The man looks several years older and is sneering down at her. The girl tries to punch him when he yanks her inside, she plants her feet on the ground and doesn’t move. There are laughs coming from inside and suddenly another guy appears. Without prompting the new arrival grabs her by the hair and smashes her head against the door, without dropping his smirk. Frank breathes shallowly.

“ _HEY!”_ he shouts. Both men turn on him, the girl is cradling her head, kneeling on the ground and sobbing softly. Frank doesn’t say more and pounces on the first guy, breaks his nose and punches him on the throat for good measure, leaving him gasping while he tries to scape.

The other guy pulls out a gun from behind, Frank takes it away from him before he shoots and knees him on the groin. He grabs him by the hair and smashes his head against the wall. Once. Twice.

And again, and again,

And again.

The body crumbles, leaving a trail of blood down the wall into the floor. Frank is panting, his ears are buzzing, the pounding of heart stronger than before and now even painful. The world comes back into focus slowly, he dazedly realizes the first guy escaped.

A whimper brings him back completely down to earth. The girl is looking up at him, she hasn’t moved but she stopped crying.

And oh God. She _is_ just a girl. With her shiny and well cared for hair, badly applied mascara now running down her cheeks, that show some residual baby fat. Her lips are bitten and her eye is swollen. Can’t be older than 15.

Renewed anger flares up and burns on his throat .He wishes he killed the other guy as well, but instead of tracking him he kneels in front of her, keeping his distance.

“You alright?” he croaks, and that’s enough to send her into another crying fit. She doesn’t move though, away or near him. She curls into herself with a hand covering half her face and muffles her own sobs with the other. She is a skinny little thing, and her clothes don’t cover her enough for this night’s chill. Frank pulls off his jacket and offers it to her. After a glance she hesitates and accepts it. Once on, she wrinkles her nose. Frank chuckles.

“Yeah, it’s been a long day and cheap deodorant can only go so far.” He whispers doing his best to look sheepish and harmless. She gives him a watery smile. “You wanna call the police?” she shakes her head “yeah thought so. Got anybody else to cal? Your parents?” she shakes her head again.

“My foster parents introduced me to that douchebag, ” she murmurs weakly, “they must have known.”

Frank frowns and keeps his anger down.

“So, nobody?” he asks, making plans on his head. Maybe he could call some favors. Make contact again with Micro, ask him to hack into the system so they send her somewhere decent. Go to Curtis, he’d be up to help him somehow.

The girl opens her mouth, looks away and says “Saint. Agnes.”

“What’s that?”

“Orphanage. I was there, before. The nuns, they might take me in tonight,” she glances now at him, “They are nuns, so they gotta. Right?”

“Yeah. Surely.”

He lends her his burner and she makes a quick call, they pick up at the third try. She winces and nods at something the other person is saying, as if they were there in front of her. She looks chastised, but calmer.

Frank walks her back, covering his limp the best he can. He asks her name and she says is Amanda, doesn’t give a last name. The orphanage is far away from his safe house, but he tries not to care about it.

They stop in front of a church, there’s a tiny older woman with glossy dark curls waiting for them on her night gown. Her expression is severe, but Frank can read the anxiety in her posture. She gives a short powerwalk towards them, and despite her brusque movements she holds Amanda’s face delicately, examining her wound. She tuts and frowns, then looks up at him and Frank feels almost intimidated.

“Frank Castle,” he doesn’t show his surprise at her recognizing him so easily

“Ma’am.”

The woman stares at him disapprovingly. But then she nods subtly “Thank you.”

He jerks his head and walks away, two steps away and there’s a hand holding him back. It’s the woman “You are hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nonsense, you are limping.”

He sucks in a breath, trying to drown his own irritation “Listen, lady I’m f–”

She smacks him on the thigh.

Frank muffles a shout of pain and almost loses his balance.

He glares, gritting his teeth. She raises a delicate eyebrow before saying: “You are coming with me. Now.” And turns away, walking gracefully with her chin raised high.

Amanda is snickering, the sound of it makes Frank feel a bit less mad “That’s Sister Margaret for you,” she explains and hastily follows the nun.

Its dark inside the orphanage and Frank feels like he was pulled some decades back in time. The wooden floor croaks and there’s a chill permeating the air. Might be the winter nearing them.

Might be ghosts.

Sister Margaret hauls Amanda onto a cot and cleans her face with well-practiced movements, then she instructs her to go find an icepack and a pajama from the charity basket, she’ll be sleeping in the infirmary tonight and tomorrow they’ll fix this mess. Once Amanda is gone, she turns to Frank and points him with a _look._

“What are you waiting for? Sit.” He does, “now remove your pants and show me your wound.”

“It’s a bit more than a bruise, sister,” he warns, which only seems to irritate her more. The whole situation feels faintly hilarious to Frank. It’s been years since someone had the balls to try and tell him what to do. And none of them made him feel like he was going to get in _trouble_ if he didn’t. Also none of them looked like a 5’4 sleep deprived nun irradiating displeasure at his everything. 

So he pulls off his pants with the most defiance he can muster on his jerky movements. Once the wound is exposed she frowns more deeply “You are a fool.”

She pulls out a med kit and cleans his wound, gets rid of the ripped stitches and sews him back up, puts gauze on, all in the record time. Then she slaps his thigh again. He flinches and growls up at her.

“Fool.” She reiterates.

Once he is leaving she says at his back “Thank you, ” and then, “I don’t want to see you ever again.”

A bit more than a week later he sees her again at a pharmacy half an hour before midnight. He is buying antibiotics; she is buying diapers, plus some other things. Frank’s been lurking around lately, trying to catch sight of Daredevil now that he is back on his bullshit, and making sure Amanda is doing alright.

Sister Margaret catches his eyes and stares at him inquiringly. Franks glances at the bags on her arms and offers to carry them for her, Sister Margaret rolls her eyes but hands them to him.

“You better don’t drop a thing. And hide your face, you look like a criminal,” Frank thinks about the new scar on his jaw, his black eye and splitting lip and shrugs, following her out into the poorly lighted streets.

She seems pissed. 

“Were you born with that face or did your life carved it for you?”

He barks a laugh.

“Fate couldn’t keep herself from chiseling it with a drill.”

The nun smiles faintly, looking away.

He asks about Amanda: she is alright, sometimes she talks about him; she’s staying in Saint Agnes a little longer until they find a better place. The police are looking after the case. So he doesn’t need to skulk around.

“You don’t like vigilantes.”

“I don’t like killers.”

He smiles wryly.

“If more people were involved in this, they might come after Amanda. I’m just making sure.”

“We don’t need your kind here, Mr. Castle. Our orphanage and church are under protection.”

“I don’t think God’s protection can do much, sister.”

She smiles openly now.

“I wasn’t talking about Him; this is Hell’s Kitchen after all.”

Amanda waves at him from the other side of the street; she is accompanied by other girl around her age. Frank nods at her and then walks away.

Night mass finished hours ago, yet Frank remains outside the church looking hesitant. He hasn’t gone to mass in years. Clinton church has that appeal that all old churches do. That illusion of standing on holy ground, Frank wonders if it’s the smell of candles and varnish on wood that does it.

The devil’s shape perched above a building is fixated on him. Frank whispers an obscenity as a greeting, knowing he’ll be heard. Matt’s shoulders are shaking like they do when he laughs but is trying not to. He doesn’t hear Sister Margaret’s footsteps until she is a few feet away. She moves stealthily, even to his trained ears.

“Sister Beatriz said that a vagrant was standing outside our gates. Sister Janice suggested that it might be The Lord, pretending to be a homeless man to test our magnanimity,” she says the last part with distaste, looking tempted to roll her eyes.

“What was your guess?”

“A fool.”

It’s almost sunset when he hears a familiar voice calling names. He sees sister Margaret trailing around two kids at the park he’s been killing time at. She feels him looking and she stares back.

She calls to another nun and says something to her, and then she trails directly to Frank’s bench.

“Sister,” he greets.

“I know from trustful sources you are incredibly surly, and yet we meet fairly often.”

“So we do. Pure coincidence, I assure you.”

She judgmentally stares him down. There’s something familiar about her, in the inflection of her voice, and it becomes more and more pronounced the more he meets her. Frank can’t quite pinpoint what or why. It is, somehow, soothing, and so it isn’t so bad when they coincide on the same places.

She sits primly by his side and he raises an eyebrow at her, she copies the gesture mockingly

“My feet are killing me, I’ve been chasing after children the entire day” she explains.

“Been there. My kids would run me ragged if I gave them the chance. The only game they could both play without fighting was ‘Daddy the noble steed,” he smiles wistfully before adding,“It’s a good thing what you do here, mothering all these kids”

“It’s the least I can do,” she whispers, and it feels like a secret. Frank doesn’t comment on it.

She tells him about the latest incident caused by a troublemaker; he tried to clean a stain with bleach and now the carpet is stained a hideous yellow color when before it was all dark blues. Frank tells her he did the same thing as a kid with a towel, decided he might as well dye the whole damn thing anyways at the end, and ended up with some orange atrocity. It is peaceful until the sun finally hides, sister Maggie then herds the children with ease that comes from practice.

Daredevil’s white teeth are unmistakable in the dark when he gives Frank that shitty little grin that always comes out when Frank does something _good_ , or some bullshit.

“You didn’t kill him.”

Frank rolls his eyes and ties his shoes, being careful of his cracked ribs. “Didn’t need to,” he says gruffly while he stands up, slowly. He took a nasty fall the day before, but by this point if he doesn’t feel a dull ache on some part of his body then he feels like something is missing.

“You didn’t even _hurt_ him.” Oh no, he sounds proud.

There was a guy beating the shit out of an old man. Frank had his guns out and aiming for the face. The guy was cursing lowly, his form was weak, the old man was squirming on the ground covering his face. Frank put away his guns and decided on immobilizing the guy, who didn’t resist much.

He called the police. Apparently there was more to the scene that what met the eye.

“The poor asshole was having a mental breakdown and the old geezer kept taunting him.”

“Yes, but you always shoot first and ask questions second. This is improvement. ” He was being an asshole on purpose, but there was real feeling behind his words, and Frank couldn’t stand it.

“Shut it, Red. You don’t know shit.”

Matt takes a step closer and tilts his head.

Then he smacks him on the ribs.

Matt’s hurt and it is Frank’s fault. He followed a lead directly into a trap that Daredevil tried to warn him about. There was an explosion and they got both caught on it, Matt took the brunt of it, using his body to cover a homeless man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Frank’s ears are ringing while he drags Matt away from the smoke, the homeless man now safe and running away by himself.

Daredevil was screaming, pressing his ears and making aborted movements. When Frank came close, Matt latched into him, hiding his face on the crook of his neck and inhaling deeply. “ _Frank,”_ he muttered hoarsely.

Now they’ve covered more ground, but Matt didn’t let go, Frank was basically carrying him away, barely registering the sirens himself.

It’s distressing he doesn’t know where to take Matt. Maybe Karen will be up for the task, Frank knows she won’t deny helping Matt.

“ _Clinton church, Frank.”_

Matt repeats these words at different volumes, unaware which one is correct. Frank squeezes his nape reassuringly to make him aware that he's got it. Matt exhales shakily and clings tighter.

Frank calls the number for St Agnes, he’s had it since the night he met Amanda. They pick up at the second try this time.

_“Hello?”_

“Sister.”

_“Castle. What–”_

“I’ve got the Devil, he is hurt.” He hears a breathe intake before she speaks again.

_“Take him to the church. I’ll be there.”_

The gates are open and Sister Margaret is waiting for them, pretty much the same way she was when he first saw her; wearing a long nightgown and her dark curls loose. Her expression is different though, visibly anxious. She hurries them in and leads them into a room underground. Frank sets Matt into a bed while Sister Margaret searches the place. Matt keeps clinging to him, he is shaking, vulnerable in a way that Frank has never seen him be before. It’s a heartbreaking thing to experience The Man Without Fear so visibly scared; someone who thrives jumping off from rooftops, who brings batons to gunfights and _wins,_ holding onto Frank like a lifeline _._

Frank tries to pull away once he feels sister Maggie by his side.

“No, no. Frank, Frank please. I can’t, I _can´t see. ”_ Matthew nearly begs, trying to sit when Frank keeps trying to part from him.

Sister Margaret caresses Matt’s cheek and he sniffs at her wrist like a kitten, then promptly lets go of Frank “Sister Maggie,” he breathes, suddenly calm. She examines his ear canals with a flashlight and then the rest of his body for wounds.

“He’ll be alright,” she says once she is done, tension slowly leaving her shoulders “He’ll recover gradually. It’s not the first time this happens, the fear is mostly from trauma, and his hearing will be back to normal in a few hours.”

Frank gives his assent and makes to leave, but he hesitates at the stairs “Can you let me know?”

“Sure,”

Frank can see she wants to add something, so he remains where he is. She glances back at Matt, who waits patiently for her return to his side, now out of his daredevil suit, eyes closed.

“Matthew always insisted you were a good man, ” her voice is steady as is her gaze “I didn’t believe him, not fully, until now.” She walks away, her back at him, stops before saying: “Thank you.” and then “If you wish to, you’d be welcome back here.”

“You lived in St. Agnes, didn’t you? That’s how she knows you.”

It’s been a week since the bomb. Through a short text they agreed to meet outside this coffee shop, Frank is hiding under a hoodie and a cap and some decent stubble and Matt is wearing his regular person suit while he holds what looks to be petroleum inside a coffee cup. Matt grins charmingly at him.

“I did.”

“You remind me of her a bit, with the subtle assholery. Guess I now know here you got it from.”

“Yeah. From my mom.”

Frank makes a double take.

“Your _what?_ Your mom is a _nun_?” _Sister Maggie_ is Matt’s mother?!

Matthew smiles, nods, and takes a sip from his steaming cup of Vantablack. Frank gives a sharp laugh.

“Oh, damn. Your family is so fucked up. No wonder you are such a freak.”

Matt doesn’t take offense from this and shrugs. “My life is made out of interesting little facts.”

Frank reflects that being (sort of) friends with the (nun) mother of one of the weirdest (and best) guy he knows might not be so bad, even if this is an scenario he never planned to find himself in.

He brings wine next time he goes to Clinton Church. Sister Maggie looks at the bottle with distaste, but pulls out a mug and drinks from it anyways, complaining it tastes like glorified vinegar and if Frank is going to make her drink alcohol he might as well not be a cheapskate. This is exactly the sort of freaky behavior he can see Matt pulling.

**Author's Note:**

> Soo. Yeah. Characterization is hard. The only good wine is late harvest wine. why? cause is sweet. And you drink it cold. what else do you want.


End file.
